Motor-vehicle.



H. KINNEL.

\ MOTOR VEHICLE. 7 APPLICATION r1120 Aue.22. 1914.

1,154,21. PatentedSept. 21, 1915.

2 SHEETS-SHEET I.

WITNESSES: y INVENTOR ,4 TTOR/VEY H. KINNEL.

MOTOR VEHICLE.

APPLICATION FILED AUG.22. 19:4.

Patented Sept. 21, 1915.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

i ill'lll'l WITNESSES:

TTHEV HENRY KINN'EL, OF SEATTLE, WASHINGTON.

MOTOR-VEHICLE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Sept. 21, 1915.

Application filed August 22, 1914. Serial No. 858,010.

I To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Haney KINNEL, citizen of the United States, residingat Seattle, in the county of King and State of Washington, have inventeda certain new and useful Improvement in Motor-Vehicles, of which thefollowing is a specification.

My invention relates to improvements in' power propelled vehicles whichmay be adapted to travel when supported either on sliding runners like asled, or on wheels like a wagon, and the object of my improvement is toprovide a vehicle propelling mechanism which may be pivotally attachedto the body-frame of a vehicle to extend rearwardly and be I free toswing downwardly to engage its moving parts with the road-bed over whichthe vehicle is to travel, such propelling mechanism being actuated by asuitable motor, as for instance, a gasolene engine or an electric motoroperated by storage battery, which motor may be fixed on the body-frameof the vehicle, the weight of such motor together with the weight of thebody-frame and of the load carried thereon being directly supported bythe sledrunners or the wheels of the vehicle independently of suchpropelling mechanism, and a further object of my improvement, in

cases where it is applied to vehicles which are supported onsled-runners that are to be used in traveling in the deep snow of anunbroken trail, is to provide means associated with the body of thevehicle whereby the soft snow of an unbroken trail maybe forced sidewiseout of the path .or pressed downwardly and compactly to form a moresolid road-bed. 1 attain these objects by devices illustrated in theaccompanying drawings wherein Figure 1 illustrates a motor vehicleembodying my invention by a plan view in which some of the parts areshown as broken structure; and Figs. 7 8, and 9 are views in sideelevation illustrating certain details of my invention.

Referring to the drawings, throughout which. like reference numeralsindicate like parts, 10 is the body-frame of a vehicle with its floorremoved better to disclose the operative parts of the vehicle, suchbody-frame 10 being pivotally mounted on three sled runners 11, 12 and13, the .forward end portion being supported on the one sled runner 13through the medium of a universal joint comprising a bracket 15 mountedon the top rail of the runner 13, a pivot 14 and a swivel 16 that isprovided with a shank 17 which extends upwardly to project through aflanged sleeve 18 in and extending upwardly through the floor beam 19and floor 20, as shown more clearly in Fig. 5, there being mounted onthe upwardly projecting end of said shank 17 a beveled gear wheel 21which meshes with another beveled gear wheel 22 which is mounted on theend of the shaft 23 which is disposed to be rotatable in the sleeveportion 24 of a housing 25 that is secured to the floor 20 whereby therunner 13 may be turned in a horizontal plane to assume any angulardirection with respect to the body-frame 10 thus to guide the travel ofthe vehicle, there being a steering wheel 26 fixed on theend of theshaft 23 which extends'obliquely rearward toward adriver seat 27 as moreclearly shown in Figs. 1 and 2; while the rear end portion of thebody-frame 10 is hinged to the runners 11 and 12 by means of hingebrackets 27 and 28 which are articulated by hinge pins 29. v

Extending between the side .rails of the body-frame 10 is a shaft 30whose end journals are disposed to rotate in slidable bearing blocks 31which are adapted to slide backwardly and forwardly in the channelwaysformed in the inner sides of the bodyframe 10, which backward andforward movements may be accomplished by the simultaneous endwisemovements of two connecting rods 32 the rear ends of which are pivotallyconnected respectively with said' bearing blocks 31 while their forwardends endwise to communicate a sliding motion to the bearing blocks 31whereby the shaft 30 clearly shown in Fig. 2.

On the central portion of the shaft 30 is mounted a friction wheel 40which is adapted to be slidably moved in a lengthwise direction of saidshaft 30 but which is fixed thereto by means of a longitudinal slot 41which extends along the central portion of said shaft 30 and into whichslot 41 projects a feather, not shown, which extends from the innersurface of the boring of said friction wheel 40, and said friction Wheel40 may be actuated to slide sidewise on said shaft 30 by means of twoarms 42 and-43 disposed to engage each with a different one of thesurfaces of the hub of the friction wheel 40, as more clearly shown inFig. 1, said two-arms 42 and 43being integrally connected with a sleeve44 which is slidably mounted on a fixed transverse bar 45 which issecured to extend between the side rails of the bodyframe 10, andmounted vsecurely on said transverse bar 45 is a bracket 46 upon whichis pivoted a bell crank 47 one arm of which is articulated with a link48 which link 48 is articulated with the arm 43 whereby a movement ofsaid bell crank 47 may cause the arms 42 and 43 with the sleeve 44 tomove sidewise and carry with it the friction wheel 41. The other arm ofthe bell crank 47 is articulated with the rear end of a connecting rod49 whose forward end is articulated with a hand lever 50 which ispivotally attached to the body frame 10 there being associated with saidhand lever 50 a locking mechanism comprising a notched segmental bracket51 fixed to the body-frame 10 in such position that any desired one ofits notches may engage with a spring and hand actuated locking arm 52which is associated with said hand lever in a manner well known, wherebysaid hand lever may be ref in its circumferential position with relationto the plane of the friction wheel 40 which is disposed so that itsperiphery may engage with the side surface of the friction wheel 55whereby when the friction wheel 40 is disposed with its peripheryagainst the center of the side of the friction wheel 55, as shown inFig. 1, then in such case a rotary motion of the friction Wheel 55 willcommunicate no motion to the friction wheel 40, but if the hand lever 50be moved to change the position of the friction wheel 40, from itscentral position on the shaft 30, then a rotation of the friction wheel55 will rotate the friction wheel 40 provided the foot lever 36 is in aposition to force such friction wheel 40 against the side surface of thefriction wheel 55. Obviously, if the friction wheel 55 is revolving in agiven direction then the direction of rotation of the friction wheel 40will depend upon which side of the center of the side surface of thefriction wheel 55 the.-

peripheryof the friction wheel 40 engages with the friction wheel 55,and, therefore, by operating the hand lever 50,;although the frictionwheel 55 be revolving in a constant direction, the friction wheel 40 maybe' caused to revolve in a desired direction, or it may be brought torest, or it may be caused to reverse its direction of rotation as may bei desired.

'Near each of the opposite end portions of the shaft 30 is articulatedto swing freely thereon a connecting rod 56 each of which connectingrods 56 is articulated with a shaft 57 which is disposed transversely ofthe vehicle and rotatably mounted in bearings secured to the front endof a rectan-' gular frame comprising side rails 58 and cross-connectingrails 59 which rectangular frame is thus adapted freely to-movedownwardly and upwardly toward and away from the road-bed over which thevehicle is to travel, and such shaft 57 is adapted to be rotated bysprocket chains 60 which are disposed between and run on sprocket wheels61 and sprocket wheels 62 the sprocket wheels 61 each being mountedsecurely on one of the opposite end portions of the shaft 57 while'thesprocket wheels 62 are each mounted on opposite end portions of theshaft 30.

And also securely mounted on said shaft 57 at equi-distant pointsbetween the connecting rods 56 are three sprocket wheels 63 around andon which are disposed to run 3 three sprocket chains 64 which extendrearw'ardly to engage with and run on three othersprocket wheels 65,respectively, which three other sprocket wheels 65 are all mounted atcorresponding equi-distant points on a shaft 66 which is ,mounted insuitable bearings on the rear end portion of said rectangular'framewhereby the shafts 57 and 66 will both revolve in response to a travelof the sprocket chains 60 which. move in response to a rotation of thefriction wheel 41.

weasel The three sprocket chains 64 are all connected together by aplurality of transverse bars 67 whose cross-section may be of the shapeof an inverted letter T, as indicated in Fig. 7, or they may be ofannular shape in crosssection, as shown by cross-bars 68 indicated inFig. 8, such cross-bars 67 being riveted to adjacent alternate links 69as shown in Fig. in which positions they serve to form a propellingdevice of caterpillar form which may engage with a road-bed to move thevehicle over such road-bed in response to a rotation of the sprocketwheels 63 and 65, the engaging edges of said cross-bars 67 beingserrated in a suitable manner, as, for instance, in the manner indicatedin Fig. 9 wherein is shown a fragment of one of the cross-bars 67- byview in side elevation. Ob,- viously, in a vehicle of such. constructionthe caterpillar-like propelling device is free and independent in itsvertical movement with relation. to the body-frame 10 and the runners11, 12 and 13 whereby in traveling over a road-bed covered with deepsnow the depth to which such runners may be depressed into the snow willhave no relation as to the depth to which the caterpillardike propellingdevice by its own weight may dig its way downwardly to a sufiicientlysolid road-bed with which it may engage in the operation of propellingthe vehicle.

On the rear end of the body-frame 10 I have provided a pivotallyattached curved deflector 70, as indicated in Fig. 2, but which is notshown in Fig. 1, which deflector 70 may extend transversely throughoutthe width of the body-frame 10 and which may serve to prevent snow ordirt from being thrown upwardly over onto the body of the vehicle, butsuch deflector 70 in many cases may be dispensed with.

Swingingly attached to the underside of the body-frame 10 in front ofthe runners 11 and 12 are deflecting boards 71 which are disposed toform an angle whose apex projects toward the front end of the vehiclewhich deflecting boards, like the deflecting board 71, indicated in Fig.4, are adapted normally to be pressed downwardly by a spiral compressionspring 72 which acts through the medium of a slidable member 73 which isarticulated with a brace bar 74 which pivotally connects with the lowerportion of the deflecting board 71, the slidable member 73 beingsuitablv secured in guides attached to the body-frame 10, and such defleeting boards 71 serve to compact the soft snow into a solid road-bedor force it outwardly on opposite sides of the vehicle when such vehicleis traveling over deep soft snow.

The runners 11, 12 and 13 may be preferablyof considerable width toprevent the vehicle from sinking too deeply into the snow and as shownin Fig. 6, there-are disposed on the bottoms of said runners 11, 12

and '13, to extend lengthwise thereof, bars 75 of channel iron whosedownwardly projecting edges may serve to prevent the vehicle fromskidding sidewise when such ve- {)iicle is traveling over a hard smoothroad- Obviously, wheels may be substituted for the runners 11, 12 and 13and. many changes may be made in the-form and arrangement of variousother parts of my invention without departing from the spirit thereof.

What I claim is 1. In a motor vehicle of the class described, thecombination with a vehicle body, of a caterpillar-like propelling devicedisposed beneath said vehicle body and articulated therewith in a mannerto adapt such propelling device to engage with a road-bed at all timesirrespective of changes in the distance between said road-bed and thesaid vehicle body, said propelling device embodying a rectangular frame,two shafts rotatably mounted on said frame and adapted to maintainuniform spacing irrespective of the relative heights of said shafts froma horizontal plane, a plurality of sprocket wheels mounted atequidistantand corresponding points on each of said shafts, sprocket chainsdisposed each to engage with and travel on corresponding ones of thesprocket wheels of said two shafts, a plurality'of cross-bars extendedcrosswise of said sprocket chains and parallel with and near each other,said cross-bars being each secured to corresponding links of each ofsaid sprocket chains and each having an outwardly projecting portionthat is adapted to penetrate and engage with a road-bed, a motordisposed on said vehicle body, and controllable means for transmittingrotary motion from said motor to said sprocket wheels of said propellingdevice.

2. A motor vehicle of the class described which embodies a motor mountedon the body of said vehicle, a propelling mechanism disposed beneath thebody of said vehicle, connecting rods each having one of its endsarticulated with the bottom of the body of said vehicle while each oftheir other ends is articulated with said propelling device andcontrollable means for communicating motion from said motor to themovably op erative parts of said propelling mechanism.

3. In a motor driven sled, runners and a body, and a propelling deviceembodying a rectangular frame, a pair of shafts rotatably-mounted onsaid frame and adapted to maintain uniform spacing irrespective of therelative heights of said shafts from a horizontal plane, sprocket wheelson said shafts, sprocket chains engaging the wheels on said shafts,cross bars extending crosswise of the sprocket chains parallel with eachother, said cross-bars being secured to corresponding links of thesprocket chains my name this fifth day of August A. D., and havingoutwardly-projecting portions 1914. g

adapted to penetrate and engage with a HENRY KINNEL.

road-bed, and driving means for said Witnesses:

5 sprocket wheels. vA. HASKINS,

In witness whereof, I hereunto subscribe FRANK WARREN.

